Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ikea will keep a lid on prices of
its Billy bookshelves across most of the euro region next year,
underscoring the bloc’s struggles as it tries to emerge from the
debt crisis.

Bloomberg’s annual Billy index shows that the Swedish
furniture chain’s signature bookcase remains cheapest in Europe,
with a price of 34.95 euros ($46.48) in Slovakia and the
Netherlands. The Dominican Republic topped the list, which is
based on the 2014 catalog on Ikea’s website, with a price of
3,995 pesos ($94.72). The bookshelf costs $59.99 in the U.S. and
349 yuan ($57) in China.

Companies from Ikea to Nestle SA are struggling to raise
prices in Europe, which only emerged from a record-long
recession in the second quarter and where inflation is the
weakest since February 2010. The world’s largest food company
this year suffered the lowest pricing growth for the first nine
months of any year since 2003.

“The outlook for domestic demand in the debt crisis
countries is hardly euphoric,” said Alexander Koch, an
economist at Raiffeisen Schweiz in Zurich. “But less of a
fiscal burden, lower inflation and a deceleration of the
negative labor-market dynamics should enable at least a
stabilization in the coming quarters.”

Billy’s Dimensions

The Billy index calculates the cost across 43 countries of
Ikea’s white bookcase that is 202 centimeters (79.5 inches)
high, 80 centimeters wide and 28 centimeters deep. Prices were
collected Oct. 15 and converted to dollars at the average
exchange rate over the past 30 days.

For next year, the average cost globally is $58.93, little
changed from $59.35 in the 2013 catalog.

In local currency, the bookcase’s price only changed in
eight countries. It was cut in the Dominican Republic and parts
of Australia and increased in Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech
Republic, Poland and the Netherlands, which saw the biggest
percentage change at 17 percent.

The Billy index is one of several including the Economist
Big Mac Index, which compares the relative cost of goods across
countries world wide.

The index, which compares each country’s Billy dollar price
against the average, increased throughout the euro region,
reflecting a strengthening of 4 percent against the dollar in
the past year. The euro was little changed against the greenback
to trade at $1.3700 at 12:47 p.m. in Frankfurt.

The euro’s appreciation against the dollar in combination
with the adjustments in the cheapest and priciest countries has
compressed the cost differential. For 2014, the difference
between the costliest and the least expensive bookcase was
$48.24, down from $72.14 in 2013.